The Hypnotist and the Warts

Saturday, June 22, 2013 - 04:00 AM

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If you haven't listened to Placebo yet, do that before you read this spoiler-strewn post -- just hit the play button above before you go any further.

In February of 1951, Dr. Albert Mason began treating a teenage patient whose skin was so ravaged that after two unsuccessful skin grafts, his plastic surgeons agreed they could do nothing else to help him.

Mason knew he was up against a big challenge. Most of the boy's body -- everything but his face, neck, and chest -- was covered in a "black horny layer" of skin that Mason said "felt as hard as a normal finger-nail, and was so inelastic that any attempt at bending resulted in a crack in the surface, which would then ooze blood-stained serum." On top of that, Mason's treatment plan didn't exactly inspire confidence in his colleagues: he was going to try hypnosis.

On the plus side, Mason had had success using hypnosis on patients with warts before, and he figured it might help this kid. So he decided to start with the boy's left arm (he specified one body part at a time in order to isolate a direct cause and effect from hypnosis). The arm cleared up in under two weeks.

As Mason moved on to the rest of the boy's body, he documented his progress -- which was shocking, especially once Mason realized he wasn't treating a bad case of warts (as he'd originally thought), but an incurable disease: congenital ichthyosiform erythrodermia.* Stunned by the boy's improvement, he typed up a paper charting his results in 1952 (PDF). Complete with photos...

The boy's right arm (a) before beginning hypnosis, (b) eight days after treatment was begun, showing complete regression of ichthyosiform skin:

Patient's legs seen from the right (a) before hypnosis, (b) four weeks after treatment, showing complete regression of ichthyosiform skin in some areas and improvement in others.

Skin on the boy's right thigh (a) before treatment, (b) one month after treatment was begun:

* This realization hit Mason hard. It rattled his confidence, and his future hypnosis treatments -- so much so, that he eventually gave it up, and came to the conclusion that hypnosis is a "folie à deux," or "madness shared by two."

Comments [24]

Geoff
from The Terrific Northwest

Very good show RL.

Is there any link to the full text of the article you link in abstract? I am ashamed to say that my subscription to Psychoanalysis Quarterly is not up-to-date. Otherwise please feel free to email it to me Ms Farrell.

The article I am talking about is "A psychoanalyst looks at a hypnotist: a study of folie à deux."

You can cure warts by crossing them out with a regular pen each day until they are gone. A kid taught me this in the playground when I was about 7. It works.

The faith healer in the last story did indeed reduce her pain. The story states "he gives him her hand, he takes it in both of his ... and he starts rubbing with his thumbs". This is a well-understood and common mechanism for reducing pain -- it is why children rub sites of impact after minor accidents which result in bruises. Briefly, pain sensation and several distinct sensors for touch sensation all provide parallel sensations for a part of the body, in this case, the woman's hand. These sensations arrive in the spinal chord in parallel before the information is relayed to the brain. In the absence of rubbing, the chronically active pain fibers dominate the signal sent to the brain. The physical stimulation provided by the rubbing temporarily inhibits the relay of the chronic pain signal at this relay point in the spine, although these pain-sensing fibers continue to signal the presence of pain to the relay point. The arrangement of the relay point effectively prevents the pain signal from traveling any further. This happens because the rubbing sensation is new, and potentially important, whereas the pain is fairly constant; a change is important to emphasize in the event that it signifies something good or bad, whereas a signal that is fairly constant is less important for attention. An injured organism escaping a predator need not attend to the pain resulting from an injury if, during flight, it has suddenly become ensnared in a vine; sensing the ensnarement immediately is far more important for successful escape than sensing the pain, which will persist. At the level of our conscious awareness, the pain is 'miraculously' (albeit temporarily) absent because the signal from the pain fibers has been temporarily shut off so as to emphasize the new sensation of the faith healer rubbing her hand. This also satisfactorily explains why the pain returned later -- the faith healer was no longer "over-riding" the pain signal by rubbing her hand.

(For more technical details search for "The Gate Theory of Pain". For example, http://www.d.umn.edu/~jfitzake/Lectures/DMED/Somatosensation/Somatosensation/GateTheory.html )

Presumably, the temporary pain reduction allowed her to exert increased strength during the 2nd demonstration. It is interesting to note that the faith healer was sufficiently confident in the efficacy of his healing in this case that he employed a stronger finger on the 2nd try.

As for the placebo effect in general, I can offer no satisfying technical argument. The Parkinson's case is particularly interesting.

I'm married to the most woderful woman, her father is s doctor who funnily enough trained at Guys hospital as well... years after, his best friend was hit with cancer and in a vain search for a cure my father-in-law learned hypnotherepy. My wife had warts on her hands and remembers the feeling of them burning away under hypnosis. We are from the UK and, looking at some of the previous comments, have a broader view of the mind, the world, and our relativity to both. My Wife and her father are not mystics quacks or socialist nutjobs. This has worked, perhaps not on everyone, but it isn't quack science. Sceptics, turn from fox news, there is a bigger and yes "real" world out there.

The assertion in the broadcast that "Christian belief" is that we've already been healed and just need to access it is a misunderstanding. The sect of Christianity which is being explored is not recognized by much of orthodox Christianity. The "Health/Wealth" movement is considered by many of us to be an heretical movement which denies the real work of Jesus. His death was not to heal our carpal tunnel, but to pay the unpayable debt for our sin in order to reconcile us with God. Formulaic healings may well use the placebo affect, but they are not a doctrine of the church.

So, just what IS a miracle? It is a great big freebie that goes against the Laws of Nature. For example, curing cancer overnight, or receiving a millions dollars as a gift from a bank (both of which I have done multiple times!) But, my biggest miracle to date was raising a dead little girl back to life at a local hospital. Read all about them at: www.booksbytucker.com

The answer the good hypnotist doctor was looking for is contained in Mark 11:22-25, wherein Jesus was teaching his Disciples how they, too, could perform miracles. He gave them a 3-part "formula" that most reades only see as one part, and thus, do not receive their miracle requests on a consistant basis. I explore this "formula" in my book, "Miracles Made Possible" (www.booksbytucker.com) wherein I teach everybody how they can receive any and every miracle they Thank God for, WHEN they desire it!

"Critical thinking" becomes a cliches as soon as it starts to enforce the findings to fit a known mode of behavior. The very way we define one reality as different in some manner from another is by noticing that something peculiar to that phenomenon is different from how something else is made, or happens. Electricity isn't magnetism, yet there is electromagnetic phenomenon. And we move to explain that rather than name the one exploring electromagnetic fields a quack. Science can become nothing better than a self-enforcing narrow set of superstitious principles, when trying to explain quarks with a little dab of Isaac Newton. It seems there is just a lot of fear involved in some tweaky compulsions to have all phenomenon fit the picture of the already known. "Placebo effect" itself is a limited principle and label; it doesn't explain anything about the actual mechanics of the effect; the complex neurology involved in unitary fields of experience and influence. It is sufficient sometimes to acknowledge facts and just say "science unknown" when a phenomenon is evidently established. I might take a shot at a theory, here, but not today.

I did not get to hear the whole show, but wished I could. So, came back to it, here. Reading the angry comments of "critical thinkers", I hasten to the front lines to piss on that thinking that likes to think germ-theory is the holy grail to all that ails us, as if a theory about forest fires was sufficient to understand all of nature. If hypnotherapy worked, it worked. If there is a curative effect to a rapport, it suggests that we are vulnerable to negative effects of "critical thinkers" in our environments, as well as "holistic thinkers" whose influence is benevolent...if the emotional rapport is serious, necessary, crucial, total. The human brain is not something designed by Plato or any other philosopher, and "Critical thinking" didn't create it; evolutionary interests did. It has archaic roots, and an represents an ancient pedigree of genetic interests. And so called "critical thinker" that cannot begin there, begin considering what it actually means that an organ that complex and running its routines at neural light speeds is going to be merely obedient to x critical theory or y sentimental expectation just isn't being intellectually faithful. There are all brands of critical thinking; the German of the Nazi era was the beneficiary of a few marvelous centuries of some of the best critical thinking, sustained in sciences and arts; a critical thinking follows a given principle from a granted premise. That's all it is. Change the premise or principle and the rationality follows a fresh direction, advantaged by its ability to develop instruments to enhance that direction of exploration. Good faith is all one can ask from a critical intelligence; when that is lacking, then cry. When that is present, then let the line develop. Previous science has never been a sacred cow for very long, when it is inadequate to measuring a phenomenon that clearly happens. Reality isn't rational; it is real. The function of consciousness in charge of mapping reality isn't rational; the one in charge of racking meaning is. The one in charge of calculating value is; but the reality function is no more rational than a dream. It is not rational, but real. A rock is not a rational object; nor is a tree. It is a real phenomenon, and so is lightning. We can make rational statements about reality, but we cannot make reality happen rationally. It doesn't. We do not make our dreams follow a rational footprint, either; they follow the gradients of an ancient organ that lives in a tangible living geology of biology, woven with neurology and arteriology and lymphatic systems; not rational but functional and real.

Another STUPID Radio Lab. You can't call these people reporters. They are wide eyed idiots. I hate it when this show comes on on Saturdays, and this time I didn't rush to turn it off in time.

Sure, the mind can make the body do things - that is the whole basis of the "placebo effect."

But for these mindless idiots to watch a "faith" healing and not use their analytical skills (apparently they don't have any) to think that the woman isn't trying to please the healer and relaxes muscles when he is saying she is ill, and then tightening them when he is saying she is cured, YOU"VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME. What a TERRIBLE example you are giving the younger viewers, who are already challenged in their critical thinking! I wish the producers of this show would get a clue - or an education.

Another STUPID Radio Lab. You can't call these people reporters. They are wide eyed idiots. I hate it when this show comes on on Saturdays, and this time I didn't rush to turn it off in time.

Sure, the mind can make the body do things - that is the whole basis of the "placebo effect."

But for these mindless idiots to watch a "faith" healing and not use their analytical skills (apparently they don't have any) to think that the woman isn't trying to please the healer and relaxes muscles when he is saying she is ill, and then tightening them when he is saying she is cured, YOU"VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME. What a TERRIBLE example you are giving the younger viewers, who are already challenged in their critical thinking! I wish the producers of this show would get a clue - or an education.

As one interested in the medical field, I find this to be intriguing. Is it just coincidence? Is Mason really something special? An incurable disease cured in less than 2 weeks with just some soothing words and fairy dust is extremely strange. In fact, all the stories told, especially those of hypnosis, super spooky. Humans are ridiculously complex and needless to say, weird.

Exert from original article explaining why the suggestion was aimed at one limb at a time:"On February 10, 1951, the patient was hypnotized and,under hypnosis, suggestion was made that the left armwould- clear. (The suggestion was limited to the left armso as to exclude the possibility of spontaneous resolution.)"

After listening to this story I thought, I have some warts on my hand, let me see if I can make mine go away. Well I just remembered this the other day when I noticed I don't have anymore warts. Previous to that story I had at least 10 on my right hand and a few on my left. So thanks.

How is it that once again, religion has wormed itself into another story that should be about science? At least the coat ceremony makes it clear where some doctors are set on the road to a god complex. ugh.

I can totally relate to this story. When I was a kid, I had a couple of warts (commonly referred to as seed warts) on my fingers. Nothing major, but I wanted to get rid of them. One day, my dad told me to take a washcloth down to the woods, scrub the wart, throw the washcloth behind me and never look back. For some reason, I totally believed it would work. The warts were gone a few days later. I always figured it was just mind over matter.